5 ms·

Stop following the crowd. Where the crowd is, there are lots of people after your job, and if we're honest, probably better than you. I've had one job my entir

Stop following the crowd. Where the crowd is, there are lots of people after your job, and if we're honest, probably better than you. I've had one job my entire career (31 years and counting.) It's very niche tech. I'm good at it. There are maybe 10 other people in the world who can do what I do. And they're all overworked. The real value and security in tech is in the edges, not the mainstream.

CountGeek 3y ago
Are you that engineer that fixed that AS400? Back in the early 2010s, there were like 5 people across, the whole UK who could work on those mainframes.
- bruce511 3y ago
  Not me :) - but that's the sort of thing I have in mind. I remember mainframe folks in the run up to y2k getting literal "blank cheques" to work on stuff.
metabro 3y ago
Curious how this works out financially though. Following the crowd got people into faang with 500k incomes. Working on something obscure I haven’t seen payoff the same.
- leetrout 3y ago
  Money aint everything.
  - mock-possum 3y ago
    Sounds like the sort of thing someone with money would say.
    - subtra3t 3y ago
      I think what GP meant was that money, beyond a certain point, means little. Upto that point money does mean a lot, and anybody who denies that has never lived in poverty. What that specific point is, depends on who you're asking. If you ask me (a student in India), that point lies around $50k/year. For me that is an unimaginable amount of money, and I don't believe earning any more than that would result in a significant increase in quality of life. But if you ask someone in USA, you might get a different answer. Maybe for them $300k/year is around where earning more wouldn't necessarily result in a significant benefit. It depends on where you are, who you've been around, and what dreams you have.
      - hammyhavoc 3y ago
        Here's a good question: if there was a sensible UBI for every human being, would you still do the work you do and still work just as hard? The answer is going to be different for everybody. I hope people find their ikigai.
- bruce511 3y ago
  It varies. Some specialist skills pay -really- well. You don't really hear about them because they're, well, niche. Equally, yes, some folk rose up through the ranks at fang (or better yet fintech) and make mountains of loot. For each success there's a fair pile of failures though. To rise up through those ranks, typically you need to make sacrifices. Long working hours, minimal time off, stand-by weekends, emails at night, and (imo) suffering the bs that comes with corporate jobs. Building your own business are all those things too, but without the corporate bs. The interesting thing about 500k though is asking what you can do on 500k, you can't do on 300. Or 200. Or in lots of the world, 50. Time left for relationships, children, holidays, other interests and so on are important to me. So I'm prepared to balance those with raw income. I'm not making anything like 500k per year, but I've turned down fang recruiters because all the money in the world can't make up for what else it would cost me.
  - metabro 3y ago
    You don’t really have to rise up the ranks to make 500k. That’s a competitive offer for a senior engineer or where a senior with a mediocre offer will end up with stack refreshers and stock appreciation in a couple of years withouts any promotion. It sounds wild but is true. Also, many of the roles are just 40hr work weeks. Not that much more stress than a 150k a year job in my experience. You are right that after a certain point more money doesn’t give you more utility in the present. However, it does buy you time in the future given the capital that you are bound to accumulate and compound.
- marssaxman 3y ago
  There's more to life than income.
Tommah 3y ago
I would be really interested to hear about what you do. If you don't want to share it in public, you can email me at the address in my profile. I'm always looking for a niche, but I haven't found one that has stuck.
- system2 3y ago
  He won't tell you. Nobody would tell well-paying niche to avoid competition.
  - metabro 3y ago
    You are assuming it’s well paying.
  - bruce511 3y ago
    Competition never hurts :). Quite the opposite, I spend a lot of time training others in the field, and passing work in their direction. I can't go into detail here though, as that would dox me, and I'd prefer my HN person not to mix with my IRL person. The thing about niches is that you don't really "look for them" - you stumble over them as your skills develop. You -could- learn my job, of course, but it would take a lot of time and effort. Part of what I'm saying I guess is that I am where i am because of a long career, amd I've accumulated a lot of experience, which is hard to pass on.
    - system2 3y ago
      Yet you still avoided saying what your niche is. Not even a clue. :)
    - em-bee 3y ago
      i know what you mean with not going into detail. i only need to list all my favorite programming languages for someone to be able to identify me. but, if i may ask, is that work that can be done 100% remote? would it make sense for an older software developer to pick that up? i am a generalist with lots of experience and i'd love to train up in a niche field to help me find work. if you think that makes sense id appreciate if you could ask your IRL person to email me :-)
5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
> The real value and security in tech is in the edges, not the mainstream. disagree. fewer jobs. less turnover. like yourself - 3 decades. better go for the next big thing. whether AI, VR or something. long as it has a barrier to entry. even just complexity.
- gogobio 3y ago
  I heavily disagree. To preface - I have a recent and a successful PhD in Comp Sci. During grad school I've known active grads who jump onto the "next big thing". Well, long story short - almost every "next big thing" eventually dies down, every single one of them ended up being a generic Software Engineer after heavily specializing in the "next big thing" because, unfortunately, the cycle of the next big thing just keeps on rolling and within 3-5 years the current "big thing" may become entirely irrelevant, which ended up being the case for them. I understand this might not be very helpful, but I suggest doing the footwork to figure out the intersection of something you truly have an interest in as well as a tech with a potential and specialize in that.
  - metabro 3y ago
    Well they’re all employed and given they chased hype they probably are in a tech hub and therefore I’d expect them to be earning above median for their cohort and still working on interesting stuff. How many of these assumptions are wrong?
  - em-bee 3y ago
    when i was young, being in a niche area allowed me to get jobs on 3 different continents and travel too. but eventually, that was not enough. i had to leave that niche and accept a python job so that i could work and live in china. it was great while it lasted, but in the long term it proved to limiting because the jobs weren't where i wanted to be (if there were any jobs at all. i stopped looking) the problem is of course to figure out what has potential, and what it takes to get into that field.
- internetter 3y ago
  > better go for the next big thing. whether AI, VR or something. The people on the edge create the next big thing
hammyhavoc 3y ago
It sounds like you found your ikigai. Wishing you continued job stability, satisfaction, income, delight, health and peace. It's wonderful to read things like this. For anyone else reading who is unhappy, uncertain or struggling, I hope you find the same for yourselves too. I probably don't know you, but there's complete strangers out there who want good things for you too. Don't give up.

CountGeek 3y ago

Are you that engineer that fixed that AS400? Back in the early 2010s, there were like 5 people across, the whole UK who could work on those mainframes.

bruce511 3y ago
Not me :) - but that's the sort of thing I have in mind. I remember mainframe folks in the run up to y2k getting literal "blank cheques" to work on stuff.

metabro 3y ago

Curious how this works out financially though. Following the crowd got people into faang with 500k incomes. Working on something obscure I haven’t seen payoff the same.

leetrout 3y ago
Money aint everything.
- mock-possum 3y ago
  Sounds like the sort of thing someone with money would say.
  - subtra3t 3y ago
    I think what GP meant was that money, beyond a certain point, means little. Upto that point money does mean a lot, and anybody who denies that has never lived in poverty. What that specific point is, depends on who you're asking. If you ask me (a student in India), that point lies around $50k/year. For me that is an unimaginable amount of money, and I don't believe earning any more than that would result in a significant increase in quality of life. But if you ask someone in USA, you might get a different answer. Maybe for them $300k/year is around where earning more wouldn't necessarily result in a significant benefit. It depends on where you are, who you've been around, and what dreams you have.
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      Here's a good question: if there was a sensible UBI for every human being, would you still do the work you do and still work just as hard? The answer is going to be different for everybody. I hope people find their ikigai.
bruce511 3y ago
It varies. Some specialist skills pay -really- well. You don't really hear about them because they're, well, niche. Equally, yes, some folk rose up through the ranks at fang (or better yet fintech) and make mountains of loot. For each success there's a fair pile of failures though. To rise up through those ranks, typically you need to make sacrifices. Long working hours, minimal time off, stand-by weekends, emails at night, and (imo) suffering the bs that comes with corporate jobs. Building your own business are all those things too, but without the corporate bs. The interesting thing about 500k though is asking what you can do on 500k, you can't do on 300. Or 200. Or in lots of the world, 50. Time left for relationships, children, holidays, other interests and so on are important to me. So I'm prepared to balance those with raw income. I'm not making anything like 500k per year, but I've turned down fang recruiters because all the money in the world can't make up for what else it would cost me.
- metabro 3y ago
  You don’t really have to rise up the ranks to make 500k. That’s a competitive offer for a senior engineer or where a senior with a mediocre offer will end up with stack refreshers and stock appreciation in a couple of years withouts any promotion. It sounds wild but is true. Also, many of the roles are just 40hr work weeks. Not that much more stress than a 150k a year job in my experience. You are right that after a certain point more money doesn’t give you more utility in the present. However, it does buy you time in the future given the capital that you are bound to accumulate and compound.
marssaxman 3y ago
There's more to life than income.

Tommah 3y ago

I would be really interested to hear about what you do. If you don't want to share it in public, you can email me at the address in my profile. I'm always looking for a niche, but I haven't found one that has stuck.

system2 3y ago
He won't tell you. Nobody would tell well-paying niche to avoid competition.
- metabro 3y ago
  You are assuming it’s well paying.
- bruce511 3y ago
  Competition never hurts :). Quite the opposite, I spend a lot of time training others in the field, and passing work in their direction. I can't go into detail here though, as that would dox me, and I'd prefer my HN person not to mix with my IRL person. The thing about niches is that you don't really "look for them" - you stumble over them as your skills develop. You -could- learn my job, of course, but it would take a lot of time and effort. Part of what I'm saying I guess is that I am where i am because of a long career, amd I've accumulated a lot of experience, which is hard to pass on.
  - system2 3y ago
    Yet you still avoided saying what your niche is. Not even a clue. :)
  - em-bee 3y ago
    i know what you mean with not going into detail. i only need to list all my favorite programming languages for someone to be able to identify me. but, if i may ask, is that work that can be done 100% remote? would it make sense for an older software developer to pick that up? i am a generalist with lots of experience and i'd love to train up in a niche field to help me find work. if you think that makes sense id appreciate if you could ask your IRL person to email me :-)

5350-uiop-1130 3y ago

> The real value and security in tech is in the edges, not the mainstream. disagree. fewer jobs. less turnover. like yourself - 3 decades. better go for the next big thing. whether AI, VR or something. long as it has a barrier to entry. even just complexity.

gogobio 3y ago
I heavily disagree. To preface - I have a recent and a successful PhD in Comp Sci. During grad school I've known active grads who jump onto the "next big thing". Well, long story short - almost every "next big thing" eventually dies down, every single one of them ended up being a generic Software Engineer after heavily specializing in the "next big thing" because, unfortunately, the cycle of the next big thing just keeps on rolling and within 3-5 years the current "big thing" may become entirely irrelevant, which ended up being the case for them. I understand this might not be very helpful, but I suggest doing the footwork to figure out the intersection of something you truly have an interest in as well as a tech with a potential and specialize in that.
- metabro 3y ago
  Well they’re all employed and given they chased hype they probably are in a tech hub and therefore I’d expect them to be earning above median for their cohort and still working on interesting stuff. How many of these assumptions are wrong?
- em-bee 3y ago
  when i was young, being in a niche area allowed me to get jobs on 3 different continents and travel too. but eventually, that was not enough. i had to leave that niche and accept a python job so that i could work and live in china. it was great while it lasted, but in the long term it proved to limiting because the jobs weren't where i wanted to be (if there were any jobs at all. i stopped looking) the problem is of course to figure out what has potential, and what it takes to get into that field.
internetter 3y ago
> better go for the next big thing. whether AI, VR or something. The people on the edge create the next big thing

hammyhavoc 3y ago

It sounds like you found your ikigai. Wishing you continued job stability, satisfaction, income, delight, health and peace. It's wonderful to read things like this. For anyone else reading who is unhappy, uncertain or struggling, I hope you find the same for yourselves too. I probably don't know you, but there's complete strangers out there who want good things for you too. Don't give up.